Op-ed
The Globalising Wall: How Globalisation built walls and divisions. By Y. Varoufakis & D. Stratou, in the Architectural Review
, 20/06/2018
Our theme is a wall. A wall that is neither some ordinary physical structure at a specific site, nor a symbolic wall. It takes a material form in sites around the globe while transcending locations and leapfrogging whole continents as if in a strange quest to globalise itself, to infect our supposedly unifying world with […]
Handesblatt interview: On Germany and Europe’s crisis, 12 June 2018
, 12/06/2018
München941.000 Follower bei Twitter ist in der Währung der digitalen Neuzeit ein Spitzenwert. Für einen Ökonomen ist es ein Rekord. Und so steht Yanis Varoufakis, 57, an diesem Montagabend im nachtblauen Anzug mit nachtblauem Hemd auf der Bühne der altehrwürdigen Münchener Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität und verbreitet Rockstar-Image. Der Rebell des Euro-Systems, für fünf wilde Monate des Jahres […]
The Italian crisis was the Left’s final warning – New Statesman op-ed, 6 June 2018
, 06/06/2018
The Left must adopt a new, credible EU policy agenda: It’s time to explain how the bloc, and the euro, could be run differently, democratically and sustainably Italy’s recent political crisis has at once confirmed the European Union’s unsustainability and the left’s impotence. That the euro is a currency system within which a country like Italy cannot […]
Interviewed by Il Fatto Quotidiano on developments in Italy, Europe and Greece. Here is the original Q&A in English
, 05/06/2018
Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano interviewed me (see here) regarding the latest developments in Italy, Europe and Greece. The original Q&A (in English) follows: Greece is about to exit from the notorious memorandum, the austerity plan signed with the troika. Public finance has improved at a high price for the population as we all know. […]
The terrible prophesies of Brexit – op-ed in literary magazine FIVE DIALS
, 03/06/2018
Brexit rode to victory on the coat-tails of a type of discontent whose power sprang from its insuperable reluctance to specify its nature. Seemingly focused on a foreign power centre that British voters saw (with some justification) as the usurper of their democratic rights, its real focal point was nebulous and imprecise enough to encompass […]
With his choice of prime minister, Italy’s president has gifted the far right – THE GUARDIAN
, 01/06/2018
Italy should be doing well. Unlike Britain, it exports considerably more to the rest of the world than it imports, while its government spends less(excluding interest payments) than the taxes it receives. And yet Italy is stagnating, its population in a state of revolt following two lost decades. While it is true that Italy is in serious need […]
Complete text of my interview with Corriere Della Sera’s Aldo Cazzullo (in English)
, 31/05/2018
Corriere Della Sera, the Italian daily, published today an interview that I gave to Aldo Cazzullo. For the published version (in Italian of course), you can visit the paper’s site here. However, the published text is a heavily reduced version of the exchange between Mr Cazzullo and myself. For those interested in the full exchange, see […]
Merkel’s Comeuppance is Europe’s – and the World’s – Misfortune – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 30/05/2018
JOHANNESBURG – One of the most common mistakes European leaders make in interpreting US President Donald Trump’s hostility toward America’s traditional allies, or the alacrity of his administration’s efforts to blow up the international order, is to assume that all of this is unprecedented. Nothing could be further from the truth. To continue reading for […]
New York Magazine – Interviewed by Felipe Ossa: “Yanis Varoufakis Has Some Ideas About How to Save the Future”
, 28/05/2018
Much of the world was introduced to Yanis Varoufakis in early 2015, when, as Greece’s bold new finance minister (he rode a Yamaha to work and tabloids touted his sex appeal), he led negotiations with the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund to restructure the country’s crushing load of government debt. […]
Trump vs. Europe – Interview for The Nation podcast
, 24/05/2018
Trump vs Europe: He’s threatening European banks and industries with sanctions. If they don’t cut off trade with Iran, they would be barred from American markets and transactions with American banks. We asked Yanis Varoufakis for his analysis—he’s the former finance minister of Greece who led the resistance to European Bankers demanding austerity—now he has co-founded […]
THE NATION: Yanis Varoufakis’s vision for a more democratic Europe – a review of ‘Adults in the Room’, ‘Talking to My Daughter About The Economy’ & ‘And the Weak Suffer What They Must?’ by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
, 15/05/2018
The idea of a unified Europe didn’t always elicit the current mixture of exasperation, boredom, and rage, in politicians and ordinary people alike. In fact, there was a time when the European Union seemed like a great initiative, especially on a continent ravaged first by two hot wars, then broken in half by a cold […]
EL PAIS: COMPORTARSE COMO ADULTOS: El exministro de Finanzas griego ha publicado un libro sobre las entretelas de la política europea
, 15/05/2018
Polémico. Atractivo. Brillante. Controvertido. Los seis meses de Yanis Varoufakis(Atenas, 1961) al frente del Ministerio de Finanzas de Grecia lo convirtieron en una celebridad global, en una suerte de estrella del rock de la política económica. Sus detractores lo caricaturizan como un extremista medio chiflado de izquierdas —según su propia definición—, enamorado de las motos potentes, de los […]
Marx predicted our present crisis; and points the way out – The Guardian, LONG READ, 20 APR 2018, print and audio versions
, 15/05/2018
For a manifesto to succeed, it must speak to our hearts like a poem while infecting the mind with images and ideas that are dazzlingly new. It needs to open our eyes to the true causes of the bewildering, disturbing, exciting changes occurring around us, exposing the possibilities with which our current reality is pregnant. […]
Liberal Totalitarianism – Project Syndicate op-ed, 30 APR 2018
, 15/05/2018
LISBON – It used to be an axiom of liberalism that freedom meant inalienable self-ownership. You were your own property. You could lease yourself to an employer for a limited period, and for a mutually agreed price, but your property rights over yourself could not be bought or sold. Over the past two centuries, this […]
Yanis Varoufakis: “Italien ist zu groß, um schikaniert zu werden” – Der Standard interview 12 MAI 2018
, 12/05/2018
Yanis Varoufakis galt für wenige Monate als der streitbarste Politiker in der Eurozone: Nach dem Wahlsieg der linken Syriza war er zwischen Jänner und Juli 2015 Finanzminister Griechenlands in der Regierung unter Premier Alexis Tsipras. Varoufakis versuchte vergeblich seine Amtskollegen zu einer Lockerung der Sparvorgaben für Griechenland zu überreden. Sein provokanter Stil stieß auf heftige […]
At home with the Financial Times – by Bruce Clark, 11 APR 2018
, 15/04/2018
Yanis Varoufakis is full of teasing paradoxes. As a radical economics guru, he expounds on the state of the world with a mixture of burning grievance and brimming, almost imperious, self-confidence. Aged 57, his personal baggage includes a keen sense of the wrongs of recent Greek history, which overshadowed his parents’ lives, and the glories […]
Our new European party can unite Britain’s feuding Remainers and Leavers – by Yanis Varoufakis, Benoit Hamon (Generation-s), Luigi de Magistris (mayor of Naples), Rasmus Nordqvist (Alternativet); Rui Tavares, former MEP from Portugal (Livre); & Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk (Razem), op-ed in The Guardian
, 15/04/2018
The European Union and the UK are on a cliff edge. Left to its Brussels-based establishment, the EU continues to turn against most of its people who, as a consequence, turn against Brussels. Meanwhile, facing an immensely damaging Brexit, the people of Britain are becoming despondent. This is the moment for British and continental progressives to forge […]
Why we founded new political party MeRA25 to challenge austerity in Greece – The New Statesman, 5 APR 2018
, 07/04/2018
After successfully quashing Greece’s 2015 debtor’s prison break, Europe’s deep establishment has embarked on a mission to declare the country’s economic and social crisis over. To recall Tacitus, “they make a desert and they call it peace”. Since 2015, the Greek state has paid its creditors a sum equal to the aggregate pre-tax revenues of […]
No Brexit for a Eurozone Britain? Project Syndicate op-ed
, 04/04/2018
As British Prime Minister Theresa May is finding out, disentangling a member state from the EU is an arduous and complex undertaking. But how much harder would Brexit have been had the United Kingdom adopted the euro back in 2000? ATHENS – “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” […]
The Guardian previews my Annual Shakespeare Lecture, tonight (19 March 2018) at the Rose Theatre
, 19/03/2018
Mark Lawson, in today’s Guardian, previews my Annual Shakespeare Rose Lecture, ahead of tonight’s delivery. He begins with its title ‘Shake the Superflux’ and the statement: ‘The beauty of King Lear is that it encourages us to think about inequality’. Is Theresa May Macbeth? Might King Lear agree with Jeremy Corbyn? On Monday night, one of Europe’s leading […]
Trump and trade tariffs: big lies founded on small truths – The Guardian, 18 MAR 2018
, 18/03/2018
Donald Trump is perhaps the US president best equipped to understand that some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. His personal business plan always involved racking up enormous deficits and debts, before finding a way to unload them on to others – his employees and creditors mostly. Last week the US president imposed tariffs […]
LA STAMPA interview on the Italian election result (the original answers in English) – 9 MAR 2018
, 09/03/2018
In this interview LA STAMPA sought my views on the outcome of the Italian elections. My original answers (in English) appear below. The gist? Italy’s election result is yet another example of the political centre’s implosion as a result of the establishment’s perseverance with failed, austerity-based policies, pretending that they were the solution to our […]
How Europe’s Band-Aid Ensures Greece’s Debt Bondage – Project Syndicate op-ed, 26 FEB 2018
, 04/03/2018
ATHENS – Greece’s never-ending public-debt saga has come to signify the European Union’s inept handling of its inevitable eurozone crisis. Eight years after its bankruptcy, the Greek state’s persistent insolvency remains an embarrassment for Europe’s officialdom. That seems to be why, after having declared the euro crisis over in the rest of Europe, the authorities […]
LE PARISIEN – Varoufakis : «Macron est excellent sur la forme, mais décevant sur le fond»
, 17/02/2018
L’ex-ministre grec des Finances veut lutter contre la pauvreté de façon «concertée» en Europe. L’ancien ministre grec des Finances, Yanis Varoufakis, fait le tour de l’Europe à la recherche d’alliés pour proposer un programme de gauche aux élections européennes de 2019. Vous voulez avoir des listes avec un label commun dans tous les pays pour les élections […]